Thursday, 17 July 2014

Portmanteau! It is one
of those words we don't hear much these days. Portmanteau! ! It
strikes fear into the hearts of every horror fanatic or ghoul-fiend
across the world. Portmanteau! But what does it mean?

'Portmanteau' was the
phrase used to describe the film format of several separate tales
tied together into a supposedly satisfying whole. This was usually
done through a venue (a house, asylum, nightclub) and the format
often made use of the rich seam of horror shorts by some of the
genre's best contemporary writers (Robert Bloch and R Chetwynd-Hayes
to name but two).

One company did
portmanteau with a gusto that bordered on the perverse – Amicus.
The supposed arch-rival to Hammer in the British horror stakes during
the 1960s-70s, Amicus certainly made the most of their formula with a
slew of portmanteau films throughout the era, including Dr.
Terror's House of Horrors, Torture Garden, Tales from the Crypt,
Asylum, Vault of Horror, and
From Beyond the Grave.

Lucrative
the genre may have been (for a while), and these films were certainly
studded with the cream of British horror acting talent, but they had
their distinct limitations. Perhaps the adorable mess that was the
last Amicus portmanteau, 'The Monster Club', best displays
these.

Most
obvious in 'The Monster Club' is a kind of studio committee
myopia which leads to all sorts of strange creative decisions.
Seemingly unable to think beyond their staple list of increasingly
bored horror leads, they approached Christopher Lee to play the
vampire role – which drew a predictably robust response. The part
ended up going to Vincent Price, in his only vampire role. Other
rather curious decisions include having musical acts to break up the
stories, with the bizarre addition of The Pretty Things in their
final attempt at a comeback and a dub soundtrack by UB40. One of the
stories features some rather ineffective exposition based on
artwork, rather than any attempt at special effects. But worst of all
is the half-baked, second-hand shabbiness of it all.

But
on other occasions it hit the ball right out of the park. The last of
the stories from 'The House That Dripped Blood' is 'The
Cloak', a story so meta that it would not be out of place amongst
'The League of Gentlemen'. The basic premise involves a hammy horror
Thespian and actual vampires, but that isn't really what's going on.

The
Thespian in question was originally intended to be Vincent Price, and
that is the first layer of self-parody here. In the story the main
character of Henderson, when on set shooting his latest schlock
horror, rips into his rookie director for the crumminess of the
script, the terrible cheap sets and the inexperience of the crew;
this is both a general dig at the general crapulence of UK horror at
the time but also a dig at Price's notoriously poor relationship with
director Michael Reeves on the set of 'Witchfinder General',
just two years earlier.

Eventually
Henderson was played by the best cravat-wearing dandy of the period,
Jon Pertwee, who rips into the script with relish. In one scene he
regales the crew with tales of the glory days of horror – when he
reels off the greats and mentions Dracula, he remarks “...played
by Bela Lugosi, not this new fellow.” The 'new fellow' being,
of course, Christopher Lee himself – who appears in another role
earlier in the film. Parodying fading horror hams and taking
the mickey out of Hammer, your great rivals? Very cheeky!

Of
course, the real subject of 'The Cloak' is the whole edifice of
theatre and film; Henderson is lured into a wonderfully dank
theatrical supply shop (if only these places still existed these
days!) on the promise of realism but, of course, gets more realism
than he bargained for. I won't spoil the ending, but rest assured
when Amicus struck the right impish tone they could make the
portmanteau formula work to wonderful effect.